Tuesday, 3 May 2016

The Battle Of Lobositz October 1st 1756 - the order of battle.

As some of you will know, I plan on taking this game to the Derby later this year and I don't want a last minute rush to work things out so, with help from the Lads, I'm going to get the scenario sorted out over the next two to three weeks.Last week Peter and I spent an evening talking through the battle and working out one of the harder parts to get right - Gessler's suicidal cavalry attack. The discussion has led to some slight alterations to the initial set up.Firstly, the road network between Lobositz and Sullowitz has been altered. The bend at the Sullowitz end of the sunken road has been made into a shallow 'S' bend. This 'fudge' was made in an attempt to bring the Morellenbach forward, immediately at the 'old' turn in the road, to allow a greater depth of deployment behind it and allow room for a ford giving access to the area lying behind the sunken road. This is more important than I at first thought.Secondly, although I changed this shortly after my last post on the Lobositz set up, you will note that Sullowitz has been shifted farther to the left and the Park's woodland has been omitted.Thirdly, I have managed to compress the depth of the Prussian deployment area allowing Wchinitz and the Prussian line to be pulled back a few inches towards the Prussian baseline. The initial deployment, especially of Gessler's cavalry, is no longer strictly historically accurate but this has not significantly changed the tactical situation. The reason for the change is to widen the no-man's land between the armies. This will be useful for the cavalry to manoeuvre in. To the same end, the Graben stream has been shifted and extended somewhat to channel any move made by Gessler's cavalry towards the sunken road.Purists will read this with their heads in their hands, cursing me for playing with geography. Of course, this assumes that the first set up was geographically correct in the first place which, of course, it wasn't: for me to accurately fit this game on a single table would require it to be nine feet deep! It is nearly always difficult, if not impossible, to represent a historical battle, using 28mm figures, with a wholly accurate ground scale; compression, especially of the depth of ground, in most cases, is mandatory. Having said that, in my opinion, the tactical problems are still the same because table depth is usually much less important than an accurate frontage in most 'line 'em up' combats which, in essence, the Lobositz deployment is.The battlefield now looks like this.

ORDER OF BATTLE

As previously stated I have amalgamated information from three sources to set up this scenario, all of which differ slightly, to come up with a set up that best suits the game. Consequently, this set up doesn't exactly match any of them but, if they can't agree why should I?The OOB for this action is roughly based on a unit of line infantry representing a two battalion regiment, a unit of light infantry representing a single battalion, and a unit of cavalry representing a cavalry regiment of five to six squadrons. All units have the same frontage. One or two minor fudges have been made to accommodate this structure but the overall proportions and composition of the forces have not been unduly altered. The size of gun batteries has been decided somewhat more arbitrarily. The Austrian batteries have been designated as two guns strong. The Prussian batteries, being somewhat larger than the Austrian batteries (in number or weight of shot), have been designated as three guns strong.I have used, to a great extent, the command structure given by Jeff Berry on his excellent Obscure Battles web site, which has, by the way, the most comprehensive single account of the battle I've come across. The one major difference in command structure, and jaunt into fantasy on my part, is my use of Hadik. In reality he should be in command of some of the cavalry under Radacati. Hadik is surplus to gaming requirements in this role but, for ease of play, the Austrians are a 'brigadier' short to command the grenadiers and so forth out in front of Lobositz and in the sunken road (actually part of Lacy's division) and, as this command would put Hadik in approximately the right place at the right time (and rather than have Blankety von Blank), I have re-assigned Hadik to it.AUSTRIANCommander-in-Chief: Maximilian Ulysses von Browne rated as 'skilled'.Kollowrat: rated as 'average'.